Nikolas Cruz’s defense attorney said at his sentencing hearing, “There is no punishment you could ever give Nikolas Cruz that would ever make him suffer as much as those people have and as much as they will continue to suffer every single day…Sentencing Nikolas to death will not change that. It will not bring back those 17 dead people. Sentencing Nikolas to death will literally serve no purpose other than vengeance,” she said. Instead, she said, “Look into your heart. Look into your soul. The right thing here, not the popular thing, is a life sentence.”1
The attorney is absolutely wrong. And she is wrong for telling those jurors that the only purpose a death sentence serves is vengeance. And to guilt those jurors and the victims’ families for desiring to see justice served unconscionable.
The purpose of the death penalty in a case like Nikolas Cruz’s is to see to it that justice is served and the value of life is upheld. It would be vengeance if the families took matters into their own hands and executed Nikolas Cruz (which is not in itself a moral evil, but it is under the terms of our system of justice). It is not vengeance when a jury of peers determine that a willful and premeditated act of mass murder claiming the lives of 17 innocent victims should receive the highest penalty the law can deliver. It is justice. And it is this attorney’s misconstrual of justice as vengeance that plagues our justice system and confuses jurors over the nature of their task.
In light of today’s jury decision, it is no wonder the families of the victims feel as though the justice system failed them. It did fail them. And the further our society moves from a proper valuation of human life, the more we can expect to see the justice system fail to deliver justice to willful murderers, even mass murderers.
Deuteronomy 19:11-13 is clear regarding how the murderer in ancient Israel should be dealt with: “But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities, then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may die.” Notice the elements here of a person guilty of murder. There is a motive (“hates his neighbor”), premeditation (“lies in wait for him”) and follow through (“and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies”). Despite whatever mental incapacities Nikolas Cruz genuinely has, he was capable of each part of the process of intentional murder.
In ancient Israel, when a person killed someone, they could flee to a city of refuge while it was investigated. If it was determined that the death was intentional, the elders of that city were to have him brought back to his own city and the family who was wronged would carry out the execution. This is not personal vengeance; this is community justice. He must be put to death, and to not do so is injustice. Deuteronomy 19:13 warns, “Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may be well with you.” The passage is telling us that when murder is committed, innocent blood stains the community. The only way to wash away that stain is for the blood of the murderer to be shed. Until then, the guilt of the crime remains on all the people.
Should Nikolas Cruz be executed? Based on the publicly available information, he absolutely should be. When the life of a person is willfully taken (let alone 17 people), the one who took that life must die. Genesis 9:6 lays down the timeless principle that remains valid in any society: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” To destroy the image of God requires that the one who shed that blood be put to death. The New Testament nowhere repeals this as being an appropriate punishment for some crimes. The apostle Paul defends the right of civil authorities to implement capital punishment as one aspect of God’s wrath, “for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom. 13:4). Paul uses the word avenger to describe the role of the government in seeing to it that innocent blood is avenged. A government that bears the sword in vain is failing in its God-given responsibility to practice justice, protect the innocent, and purge the guilty. It is certain that individuals are not to execute God’s judgment. We are to forgive and even love our enemies. But it is the responsibility of civil authorities to uphold the sanctity of human life by executing those who murder others.
There is a threat to bringing justice to the offender. The threat is pity. Verses 13 and 21 both warn, “Your eye shall not pity him.” Those responsible for justice in a society may be tempted to shirk their responsibility because they pity the offender. While extenuating circumstances need to be taken into account when executing justice such as the age or mental capacity of the offender, if the authorities responsible for carrying out justice neglect their duty, they will almost certainly bring more blood and guilt upon the people. Not only will evil flourish, but citizens will be left with few alternatives to taking the law into their own hands. And this kind of vigilante justice rarely executes the aims of justice but is frequently disproportionate.
To our shame, many today both inside and outside the church reject capital punishment. Pope Francis represents the view that capital punishment should not be used. He states,
…the death penalty is unacceptable, however grave the crime of the convicted person. It is an offence to the inviolability of life and to the dignity of the human person; it likewise contradicts God’s plan for individuals and society, and his merciful justice. Nor is it consonant with any just purpose of punishment. It does not render justice to victims, but instead fosters vengeance. The commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ has absolute value and applies both to the innocent and to the guilty…It must not be forgotten that the inviolable and God-given right to life also belongs to the criminal.
Pope Francis to the 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty
He’s wrong. First, capital punishment cannot contradict God’s plan when his plan explicitly prescribes it. Second, biblically speaking, retribution is the chief purpose of punishment and the death penalty is consonant with it. Third, the death penalty may or may not foster vengeance in the hearts of victims, but that is beside the point. Christians are clearly called to forgive our enemies. We are most certainly not to take the lives of anyone as private individuals. But the state is acting in justice, not vengeance, and has a responsibility to execute murderers in the enforcement of justice. Finally, his statement about “Thou shalt not kill” having absolute value and applying to both the innocent and the guilty is such a gross distortion of Scripture that all thinking people should reject it. The very same books of Exodus and Deuteronomy that contain the sixth commandment also repeatedly call for the death of criminals, and so the commandment very clearly does not apply to those guilty of capital crimes.
We should not be surprised when non-Christians abuse the Bible and misread it so badly when the Pope himself spouts off such non-sensical drivel. We commend the Roman Catholic Church for its strong defense of life from conception until natural death, but this opposition to the death penalty is at odds with the Scriptures. The guilty in a just society must be purged.
While I believe that capital punishment is required for murderers, I acknowledge that some biblically faithful Christians still disagree with the position. Some argue that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to crime. While this point is debatable, I would say that deterrence is just one reason for punishment, and not the primary reason. Some argue that it is far more expensive to execute a criminal than to imprison them for life. While this is probably true, the argument rings hollow as those who oppose the death penalty generally are not concerned about government spending. If the government is going to spend extra money on something, justice is a far more worthwhile expense than many others. Some believe that life in prison is a harsher penalty than a quick and painless execution. That may be the case, but the point is that the punishment must be commensurate with the crime. Execution is commensurate. Some oppose the death penalty because it is “cruel and unusual punishment.” We can be certain, as the courts have upheld, that when the 8th amendment was added to the constitution in 1791, the purpose was not to forbid capital punishment. Besides, keeping a person locked up for the rest of their lives exposed to all the evils of our prison system could just as easily be described as “cruel and unusual.”
A far better reason for being hesitant to support capital punishment is that it has been disproportionately applied to minorities in America. As tragic and unjust as this is, the solution is not to stop using the death penalty, but to start applying it far more consistently to all who are guilty of intentional murder. Steps have been taken to reduce these inequalities, and more steps should be taken until all are treated equally in this regard. Finally, some are opposed to capital punishment because we know that some people have been executed who were innocent. This is true. One of the gifts of DNA evidence has been the ability not only to convict the guilty of crimes, but also to free the innocent. Some however are using this as a basis for doing away with capital punishment. The fact is that this scientific method will help to ensure the death penalty is not used against the innocent. The Bible puts significant emphasis on not punishing the innocent and Christians should celebrate and support this value. Safeguards are very appropriate. But God instituted the death penalty long before DNA evidence was available and was surely aware that mistakes could and would be made. Nevertheless, despite the possibility of mistakes, it was still better to have the death penalty as part of the law. And it still is.
A government that does not protect the innocent is not worthy of the name. That is true for civil governments, as well as church governments and family structures. No government can perfectly protect the innocent, but when evil does happen to them, the government is then responsible to purge the guilty from their midst and re-establish justice. Today, our justice system failed.
1 https://www.ksl.com/article/50493070/attorneys-argue-over-school-shooters-fate-death-or-prison
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